Lory and family: 700 strong

The Pig Tales sanctuary houses and feeds all sorts of farm animals,allowing them to live out their natural lives. They don't just take up LoryYazurlo's days and nights, her every waking moment. They have the run of herhouse.

Since 1995, Yazurlo has been "the Pig Lady of Bunnell," taking in unwantedpets and abandoned domestic swine, feeding them, naming them and keeping themfrom America's breakfast table.

And she has navigated those 20 muddy acres in a wheelchair. Yazurlo, 43,has been a quadriplegic (there are degrees of quadriplegia, depending on whichvertebrae are damaged) since a 1991 on-the-job accident as a truck driver forCSX.

Her daily effort to tend to the animals, to take care of herself, and fightongoing battles over a worker's-compensation claim, is the stuff of greatdrama, say Sanford filmmakers Eric Breitenbach and Phyllis Redman -- a tale ofcourage, compassion, resilience, a will-to-survive and an obsession thatborders on madness. When they read about Yazurlo in a 2002 Orlando Sentinelstory, they saw a compelling documentary film in her struggle.

"Lory's utter determination to make this pig sanctuary work is whatimpressed me," says Breitenbach. "She's in the moment. She can't even thinkabout tomorrow. It's about today, getting out of bed, getting the food,feeding the pigs."

"We went out there to do an art film, which we did," says Redman. "But whatwe found ourselves doing was getting involved in this human story, and that'sthe story we told."

Crazy or depressed?

These husband-and-wife moviemakers were newlyweds when they started filmingYazurlo in late 2002. Years of filming, following her, of not knowing whethershe would survive the stresses of her life, her finances and her family havebecome When Pigs Fly, their acclaimed documentary about Yazurlo, her familyand family history.

The movie, which premiered at the Palm Springs Film Festival in January,will be shown at the Florida Film Festival this afternoon at 3:45 at theEnzian Theater in Maitland. It is, as The Hollywood Reporter noted in PalmSprings, "an unflinching portrait of how a vibrant woman chooses to live aftera devastating injury, and the contradiction-filled ways those closest to hercope."

When Pigs Fly spans the seasons of the year, and years of Lory Yazurlo'slife, from her childhood through her 1991 accident; from her discovery of pigsthat need rescuing (when the pot-bellied-pig fad ended) to the rising size ofthe herd that she -- with help from friends and family -- cares for.

It is a tale with heroes and villains, and sometimes Yazurlo herself cancome off as both. "Crazy" is a word that those who don't know her might usefor someone who lives this close to pigs, with them in, and all over, herproperty and her house.

"It's a movie, we hope, that reveals how society marginalizes some people,"Redman says. Yazurlo, Redman says, can seem like her own worst enemy, refusingto take care of herself, adding to her pig herd and her burden.

"She's physically disabled, and people think she's crazy. What is yourdefinition of crazy? That's about mental health and depression, and that'swhat we hope her story educates people about. People don't recognize'depression.' They just say, 'Oh, she's crazy.' She's not. She has her ups anddowns. You try taking on what she has to deal with every day. You'd bedepressed, too."

A family story

When Pigs Fly -- the title is ironic, considering the long odds Yazurlomust beat to maintain herself, her sanctuary and her sanity -- has a heroine,too. It is Charlene, Lory's mom, a retiree, a woman of infinite patience whohandles much of the physical care her daughter needs, who battles withinsurers and takes on many of Lory's burdens as she tries to keep Lory going.

"Lory's story can seem kind of hopeless and funny and sad," Breitenbachsays. "Then, we met Charlene. And her father. The other sister. It became afamily story pretty quickly."

"We started to notice Charlene was out there a lot," Redman says. "All ofthese tasks she has to take care of to keep her daughter going. She worksharder than any working person I've ever known, and she's retired."

Charlene Yazurlo, 64, laughs at that. The movie opens with a shot of her,singing with the Sweet Adelines, a little something she does for herself. Buteven in that, she's singing at retirement homes and the like -- giving.

"The movie has me doing more than I really do," she says. "Maybe I did moreback then."

She's enthusiastic about the film, and mostly for reasons that have to dowith helping her daughter. The more people who see Lory's battle withinsurers, her commitment to animals, the more chances somebody will be therewith a donation, some offer to help managing her way through the health-careor insurance industries. She does a blog on the movie's Web site (whenpigsflythemovie.com) with that in mind.

"I just hope people realize, from seeing this movie, what a person withLory's physical disabilities goes through," Charlene says.

The disabilities are the result of an accident in 1991 when a car cut offher truck and forced it into a concrete barrier, according to the Sentinel's2002 story. The impact threw Yazurlo and the whole front seat through thewindshield and onto a highway. The accident left her unable to walk.

"You lose your identity when something like that happens to you," Redmanadds. Lory "was doing really well as a truck driver, had property inVirginia, horses. That accident changed all that, and her. That's somethingyou don't realize is a consequence of an event this traumatic."

An old hand at long projects

The odor. Everybody says it. The first thing that hits you when you arriveat Pig Tales is the smell. Rich McKay, the Sentinel reporter who wrote thestory that inspired Breitenbach and Redman, calls it a cocktail of"ammonia-urine and pig feces and stagnant water cooked in the Floridasunshine," and notes that the photographer he brought with him had to find "agreen patch of grass to vomit."

"It's not a commercial farm . . . and that spreads out the waste,"Breitenbach says, diplomatically. "It's not concentrated. She feeds themvegetarian feed, so the odor isn't as bad as it could be."

The filmmakers wore their "pig pants and pig boots" to the farm. It was 132miles, round trip from Sanford to Bunnell, one day a week, every week, for ayear. The entire filmmaking process, start to finish, took four years. Now,When Pigs Fly is being accepted in festivals, and they've shown it to a fewcable networks, hoping to sell it to TV.

Breitenbach, 50, is a photographer who teaches at Daytona Beach Community
College, and he's an old hand at these long-term documentary projects. Heco-directed My Father's Son, an uplifting and again "unflinching" look at anOrlando homeless man.

"My heroes are photographers and writers who look on the other side of thatfence: Walker Evans, Diane Arbus," he says. "The method is to keep on keepingon. You shoot a lot. You find the story as you keep on keeping on."

'Optimism, strength'

The story they found is not just of a determined woman, but of a familythat functions in a dysfunctional way. Lory's father is the film's naysayer,the voice of reason predicting that she won't be able to go on like this. But,as Redman points out, "There he is, out there, building shelters for the pigsto sleep in."

Charlene keeps Lory in cigarettes, which don't help her health.

"If I was a quadriplegic and all I needed was a few cigarettes to maintainmy mental health, day to day, I'd have a smoke, too," Breitenbach says.

It's a "a film about coping," says Redman, 46, who earns her living as afreelance photographer-videographer. It's a tragic story told with humor, andsympathy. It's impossible not to get to know somebody over the years it tookto make the movie, Breitenbach adds, without sharing their ups and downs.

"I love the line in the movie where John, Lory's father, says, 'We've lostone daughter. Another's a quadriplegic. But there are people who've had itworse than us.'

"When I heard him say that, I wondered, 'Who? Who's had it worse than you?'That's optimism, strength, whatever you want to call it."

It's what keeps Charlene Yazurlo so upbeat throughout the film, over theyears before the filmmakers came along, and through the long years thatBreitenbach and Redman were making the movie. She's upbeat even today, as sheplans to bring the family -- Lory included -- to the When Pigs Fly premiere atthe Florida Film Festival.

"At first, it was kind of scary when Lory told us that this professor atDBCC was coming out to film her," she says. "But I could tell right away thatthey weren't there to use Lory. They respected her, and their ideas aboutanimals seem to match hers. Well, not quite to the same degree.

"Lory has this big spider living in her room, huge. And she won't kill it.She tells me the other day, she's all excited to see this spider, the size ofher fist, coming out to see her."

Charlene Yazurlo chuckles at the very notion of being this committed tolife, even spider life.

"I don't find that exciting at all."

Roger Moore can be reached at RMoore@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5369. First photo ran on page F1.